While conditions were brutal, some laws explicitly forbade working a slave in a way that clearly caused death without disciplinary justification. In Cuba (1842), the Reglamento de esclavos required owners to give slaves adequate food, rest, and medical care. Failure leading to death could be prosecuted as homicide. In practice, few prosecutions occurred, but the law existed.
One of the most horrifying illegal acts within a slave-legal system was the seizure and sale of free Black people (or Native Americans) into slavery. This violated local laws that protected free status. skacat illegal aspects of legal slavery 18 best
Some slave owners granted manumission legally via will or deed, then had heirs illegally re-enslave the freed person by claiming “ingratitude” or destroying documents. Virginia’s 1782 manumission law was routinely circumvented this way, though such actions were illegal under property and contract law. While conditions were brutal, some laws explicitly forbade